A Houston-based trial lawyer has some grandiose plans for snagging New York storm-insurance cases: Steve Mostyn “indicates his firm should be able to take on more than $1 billion in disputed claims — or half of all the Sandy litigation.” That’s assuming clients sign on, of course. One who did was a swim club owner from Pound Ridge who was frustrated dealing with New York lawyers and quickly signed a contract with Mostyn’s firm: “It is worth the 40 percent just for someone to listen to my story and be kind to me,” she said. [Austin American-Statesman]
Posts Tagged ‘chasing clients’
Annals of tasteful lawyer promotion
Michigan: “Lawyer Offers Free Valentine’s Day Divorce” [Newser, Walter Bentley site, Legal News]
Ethics roundup
- His own bad deal to make: client can’t sue lawyer for malpractice after lawsuit lending swallows up proceeds of $150K settlement [BNA]
- U.K. legal representation: “John Flood looks at the cab rank rule” [Legal Ethics Forum, more]
- Drumming up business: “Junk fax class action may proceed despite attorney misconduct” [Reuters]
- “Personal Injury Lawyers Sue Other Personal Injury Lawyers Over Solicitation” [Turkewitz, more]
- Manipulating time records to qualify for bonus proves costly for Wisconsin attorney [Volokh]
- Lawyer profile: “Defender of the Notorious, and Now Himself” [NY Times]
- Local prosecutors connive at debt-collection abuses thanks to 2006 legal provision [LA Weekly]
Great moments in legal marketing
A Fort Lauderdale attorney “Announces He Is Taking on All Celebrity Criminal Cases in Florida” [Scott Greenfield]
And a reaction from @SupremeHaiku: Florida lawyer/ Will defend the defenseless/ If they are famous.
The multiple “Hammers” of injury advertising
Rochester’s Jim Shapiro (“I cannot rip out the hearts of those who hurt you. I cannot hand you their severed heads“) is not the only injury lawyer who advertises as “The Hammer.” Natasha Lydon offers a YouTube-powered guide to the various injury lawyers to have adopted that monicker [Above the Law]
Media-chasing lawyers
Eric Turkewitz notices how often they feed the press tidbits that could prove prejudicial or damaging to their own clients.
Torts roundup
- Dixon v. Ford Motor Company: “The Best Causation Opinion of 2012” [David Oliver] “Any exposure” causation: “Pennsylvania Supreme Court delivers significant asbestos ruling” [Point of Law]
- Maryland high court may consider pro-plaintiff shift from contributory negligence to comparative fault [Sean Wajert]
- In last-minute ploy, Albany lawmakers extend time limits for suing local governments [Torch via PoL, Times-Union]
- Mental diagnoses: what to do when courtroom experts armed with DSM-5 shoot from the hip [Jim Dedman, Abnormal Use]
- California appeals court, legislature decline to go along with trial lawyers’ crusade against Concepcion and class arbitration waivers [WLF, CL&P]
- Critics challenge legality of Louisiana AG’s use of contingency lawyers [Melissa Landry, Hayride]
- To curb client solicitation, NJ mulls withholding crash reports from noninterested parties for 90 days [NJLRA]
“Heavy Hitter” lawyer ads
Above are versions for the lawyer who uses the ads in Louisville/Lexington, and YouTube makes it easy to check out the versions done for other lawyers in Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Rochester/Syracuse, and Erie, Pa. Talking dogs and cheesy car replicas abound.
Also, from Martindale-Hubbell: a selection of 7 “awesomely bad” and “funniest” lawyer ad videos.
June 11 roundup
- Nortel portfolio now used for offense: “How Apple and Microsoft Armed 4,000 Patent Warheads” [Wired]
- Via Bill Childs: “This shows up in Google News despite fact that it’s lawyer advertising.” [TheDenverChannel.com] At “public interest watchdog” FairWarning.org, who contributed this article about Canadian asbestos controversies? Byline credits a law firm;
- Another Bloomberg crackdown in NYC: gender-differential pricing in haircuts and other services [Mark Perry]
- A “Pro-Business Regulation Push” from Obama White House? Oh, Bloomberg Business Week, sometimes you can be so droll [Future of Capitalism]
- “Trial Lawyers’ Support of Republican Candidates Yields Less Than Stellar Results” [Morgan Smith, NY Times; Examiner editorial; more from TLRPac on Texas election results]
- “Community banks to Congress: you’re crushing us” [Kevin Funnell]
- If an emergency injunction could stop one reality-TV show, why couldn’t it stop them all? [Hollywood Reporter]
Self-proclaimed NYC “Queen of Torts”
She’s asking $30 million over a client’s dog bite. Have her subjects informed her about New York’s abolition of ad damnum clauses? [Eric Turkewitz, earlier]